Deborah Conrad awoke Friday to a familiar and unpleasant site: a notice near the elevators of her Gross Towers apartment building alerting residents that hot water would be off — for the sixth day in the last eight.

As bitter cold grips the Lehigh Valley, residents of the Allentown senior high-rise complex have had extra reasons to shiver.

In Gross Towers, hot water was out last Friday through Tuesday, only to be shut off again the following Friday. And in neighboring Towers East, multiple residents have been using portable heaters in an attempt to stay warm.

In the aging complex, owned by the Allentown Housing Authority, issues with heat and water aren't new. But with temperatures stubbornly well below freezing, Conrad said, the problem has come to a head.

"It's a mess here," she said. "Gross Towers is a fitting name for the building at this point."

Ken Heffentrager, vice president of the Allentown Tenant Association, said his group has fielded 15 to 20 complaints from Gross Towers residents since Sunday. The 147-unit public housing tower, available to seniors and the disabled, has been the site of multiple tenant complaints over the last year, he said.

The calls came flooding in Sunday, Feb. 15, two days into one of the recent hot water outages, Heffentrager said. People couldn't take it anymore.

"We get it," Heffentrager said. "The feds hold the purse strings, but these people pay rent and you can't provide the simplest things?"

Daniel Farrell, Housing Authority executive director, said crews were at Gross Towers on Friday working as quickly as possible to address the hot water problem. Hot water is expected to be back for the weekend, he said.

The authority recently installed new water heaters in the building, but the nearly 50-year-old tower's aging distribution system is plagued by leaks, he said. And the authority doesn't have the money to completely replace the system.

"I can understand how it would be frustrating for everybody," Farrell said.

Farrell acknowledged that multiple electric heaters are being used in Towers East. The authority tries to keep heat at 72 degrees throughout the building, but some units are too hot, others too cold, he said. Heaters are given out if cold units can't be fixed, he said, and residents who want extra warmth may use their own if done safely.

Problems are not unexpected as the housing complex ages. Gross Towers, the older of the two buildings, opened in 1967. The 129-unit Towers East opened in 1975. Repairs and upgrades have been done over the years, including a massive renovation of Gross Towers following a deadly 1994 natural gas explosion that killed one person and injured more than 80.

But some of the systems, such as the water distribution system, have reached the end of their life spans, Farrell said. If money were no object, the entire system would be replaced, he said. Instead, the authority will repair segments over several years, he said.

Conrad, 50, said the cold showers and air have been taking a toll on residents. Some have been suffering from upper respiratory infections because of the persistent cold, she said. In the summer, residents went several days with no water at all, she said.

"With the elderly, you need to be careful," Conrad said. "We've just got to take care of one another."

Farrell said he was not aware of any residents who were sick as a result of heat or water.

"We're not ignoring it," he said. "We're trying to stay on top of it and working with the resources that we have."

City Councilman Julio Guridy, a member of the housing authority board, said several members of the authority's maintenance staff have retired or taken leave, slowing efforts to make repairs. He said the authority is working as quickly as possible to fill those positions, and exploring the option of outside contractors for some of the work. The union that represents the staff will have to be amenable to the idea, he said.

"Especially with this kind of weather, we don't want people to be suffering," Guridy said. "But at the same time, people have to be understanding."